... perhaps a difference between 'portable' and 'transportable'? I can 'portage' an unloaded canoe along a foot path & I can pay a shipping company 'transport' a 10 meter motor boat on a truck bed. :^)

Yes! That makes it clear... Transportable would imply the use of some sort of vehicle... Anything is transportable, really, but a station that would be ready and meant to be transported regularly would fall under that definition...

Yeah, the current definition of /P actually is transPortable. Maybe we should have "pedestrian portable" to go along with "pedestrian mobile". Please no more CW suffixes though, /P /PP /PM /PP/QRP etc. becomes just too much for for me when you add the call area portable designators, and it would be a nightmare for QSL checking.

To LA9XSA and everyone viewing... Its simple....keep it simple.....just add QRP to the end of your call....if you want to add any other designation as to portable or whatever....do so on your Qsl card. To me....stating you are Qrp is enough information unless the party at the other end of the QSO wants to know exactly what you're doing. Its like SOTA....once you mention SOTA....most everyone knows you're on the air atop some summit somewhere. Anyway....that's my take on adding more information other than being QRP. Enjoy Summer Dxing. Best regards with many 72...73. Don sr.--WA2TPU/Qrp --

Yup. Just think about all those extra LotW certificates one would have to juggle, and all those duplicate QSO records; that's why I don't even use /QRP in my callsign but rather reveal my power output when exchanging working conditions (antenna, transciever etc).

The 5 watt CW and 10 watt SSB QRP limitations really only apply in contests or for awards. I routinely run my Elecraft K2 at 10 to 12 watts cw OR ssb. I just enjoy ragchewing, especially when operating portable. So unless you are out for operating awards or contests, don' worry about so called 5/10 watt limitations. Originally qrp just meant "low power" and how you define that is anyone's guess. 200 watts is qrp compared to a kilowatt. So just go operate, have fun, and don't worry about some silly "rule" that only applies in contests or award chasing. A gel cel and my K2 at 12 watts can operate for many hours of satisfying contacts.

...... The Military guys have known for years that 20 to 30 watts on HF is all that you need even when using short tactical whips on HF manpack radios. If the military could have used 5 watts and make more battery space or light radios they would have have done so a long time ago. They experts at what they do and 20 watts today is considered effective communications power even when special forces operators have to get the message from 1 continent to the other. When the Falklands war was happening I could hear military HF clansman manpack communications all day and all night long . If they were running 5 watts I would have never have heard them from another continent.......

Quite right. I’ve been doing QRP since 1980 when I was on a Special Forces A team. We used AN/PRC-74B HF radios that were rated at 15 watts PEP. Mind you that was for a radio that was powered by a regulated bench power supply and measured with a perfect 50 ohm load in a laboratory. The real power was a lot less in the field with old nicad batteries, especially in the winter time. My guess we got about 6-8 watts out of them on a good day; less on a normal day. And we did 700 mile shots to our base station day in and day out. Some A teams did 1200 miles no issues. And yes, 8 watts is QRP!

We would walk at least 5 kilometers, more like 10 from our base camp to the radio broadcast site, set up the dipole and since we were in Europe, we would tune to RWN (Russia) to check our watches. We would then catch the blind broadcast at 13 WPM Morse from our base station in England. We would then decrypt our frequency from the blind broadcast, drop the antenna, ‘cut’ the dipole to frequency (the number 468 was used all the time!), and get it back up so we could burst out our encrypted Morse messages 15 minutes later. Miss the blind broadcast and you were screwed as you had no idea what frequency to broadcast on. No tune ups, no antenna tuners, no SWR meters, just one shot so you had to do it right. Missing a transmission was bad, very bad. Missing two in a row would cause a lot of people to panic. Missing 3 in a row and emergency resupply air drops would be flown to our E&E DZ.

After we were done we would pack up and walk the 5 kilometers back. Lots of times it was 10 kilometers. The next day we would get our messages in the morning blind broadcast at 13 WPM. The radio operators could copy code at 21 wpm or faster.

Pop Quiz: Why did our base station transmit at 13 WPM when our radio operators could copy at 21 WPM plus?

To me, QRP power levels are relative. If everyone in your net is using 1500 watts and you have only 100 watts you are QRP. If you have 5 watts and everyone else has 1 watt (GMRS for example) you are QRO.

Now a days I just use my FT-817 at 5 watts. If I need to, I kick in the THP 50 watt amp. For me it’s the QSO that matters not the power level.

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